(Imagine lemmings the size of elephants.)

6:30 AM, October 15, 2005 -- Beware the Ides of October.  Stephanie Jacobsen Willis of the Chalkboard Project was grilled by Betsy Hammond, education reporter for the Oregonian, and Russ Lewis, KGW-TV (NBC's Portland affiliate) staffer and apparently regular Saturday morning host of the hard-hitting and incisive news analysis program, Viewpoint.

Mr. Lewis began with words to this effect: The Oregon system reports that the schools here are improving, but the federal government comes along with No Child Left Behind testing, and reports quite a different picture.  What are parents to believe?

The preceeding commercial was sponsored by the Oregon Education Association and the press drones of Oregon.  And, of course by the non-partisan Chalkboard Project.  Here's the first piece we did that included reference to Chalkboard.

Surveys by, or financed by, this group found that a large number of Oregonians believe that school performance is directly tied to parent involvement.  Since that is, except for the constant need for more money, about all parents have heard in the media for years, we're not suprised at that result. The polling organization, public or private, which did this poll for Chalkboard, by the way, wasn't named on the program. Nor was any reason presented which supported the idea of believing anything Chalkboard has to say.  No mention was made of the effect of culture on educational testing numbers.  I bring this up because it is easy to notice that different cultures turn out different kinds of students. Such effects cannot be publicly noted because they fly in the face of the educational shibboleth known as political correctness.  (Multi-culturalism, which is the First Commandment in secular education circles, holds that all cultures are created equal.)

Miss Hammond of the Oregonian asked Miss Willis of the Chalkboard Project about this "parent involvement" business.  Miss Willis said that the work demands on parents make it difficult to achieve without special flexibility (on the job time for parental work with childen).

Honest to God.  These idiots sat there like bobbing head dashboard dogs and said that.  This is what happens when you give adult reponsibilities to children.

Liberals destroy the family with no-fault divorces, a complete negation of traditional moral values with respect to pre-marital sex and government financial support to replace absent fathers in the home.  Liberals fund this rape of a working classical American system by jacking up tax rates to the point where those who are married have to hold down two full time jobs -- one just to pay the taxes.  Then, liberals blame the problems which result on anybody but themselves.

Just in brief, the Chalkboard Project is a product of the wisdom of the ages in that it was created, what, a couple of years back?  The Oregonian's Miss Hammond demonstrated her shiny newness and spectacular liberalness when she spoke feelingly about the need to close the "achievement gap" by welcoming  non-English speaking parents into the fold.  I am struck by this particular observation.  For the validity of it, one could study the Mexican education and economic system to see what wisdom these non-English speaking parents brought with them when they illegally crossed our borders in the middle of the night.

Our question to the citizens (people who have the legal right to live here) of Oregon is this -- what kind of "parental involvement" in our education system should you have?  Here's a list that Mr. Lewis of KGW, Miss Hammond of the Oregonian and Miss Willis of the Chalkboard Project didn't mention. 

For financing, take a look at the cost of the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS).  For testing of school performance, compare the state method which just said we're doing a much better job to the Bush federal system which says we're not doing a much better job.  (Our vote for people who could do that on Viewpoint would be Steve Schopp and Rob Kremer, both Portland-area residents. If Mr. Lewis has the guts, we'll send him contact info for them.) 

For parental involvement time questions, Oregon Magazine suggests a comparison of the local, state and federal tax rates during the Fifties and those presently in place.  If the comparison shows that tax rate increases are the reason why both parents have to work, where in the past they didn't, then it is the politicians put in office by the school unions and the freaky far lefties at KGW and the Oregonian who are the problem.  One doesn't have to further weigh down business for socialist revolutionary purposes.  By cutting taxes, one could gain lots of time for parents to help their children with their schoolwork. Business could go back to doing business.  There's a revolutionary thought.

Here, let's simplify this. KGW's Viewpoint is an overlook eternally locked in fog.  Nothing can ever be viewed from that location.  Betsy Hammond is a perfect education reporter for the Oregonian, because she doesn't know anything that didn't come from the official manuals of the Left.  And Russ Lewis needs a comforting word from an adult, and something to play with on the set.

Congratulations to KGW and the Oregonian for equalling the level of on-camera baloney of the most fraudulent flack of recent history.  In the best tradition of progressive educational PC-speak, they  "share" October's Baghdad Bob Journalism Award, and can kumbaya hand in hand off into the sunset, stage left.  For those who, like most Oregon educators and journalists, are in the dark, the award is named for the man who stood on the roof of a hotel in Baghdad and as Saddam Hussein's press information officer said on camera that the Americans would never enter the city.  The American tanks could be seen over his shoulder, heading for the hotel, as he said those words.

And, for my critics, yes, I still believe these people are morons instead of conspirators in a unified and coordinated attack on decency, self-reliance and the other traditional personal, family and community values in America.  Not being a liberal journalist, I cannot read people's motives from their actual passing thoughts, so choose the more charitable of the options.  They are in the main stupid people, not evil people.  Not that the motive of the driver of the car that runs you down matters a hell of a lot in the ambulance ...

(LL)

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